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Case Study

An Historic
Townhouse

Built circa 1831 • Four-story, single-family Federal townhouse • Georgian facade dates to 1925 renovation / expansion • 22 × 97 ft. lot in the West Village Historic District • 4 floors at 968 sf. each (22 × 44 ft.) totaling 3,872 sf. + full cellar • Preceded by a walled garden, a 300 sf. brick and slat-roofed cottage at rear of property with north-facing sloped, skylit roof and wood- burning fireplace designated as an artist’s studio • Listed on the National Historic Registry
Architecture
Lichten Architects
Interior Design
Alicia Murphy Design
Photography
Brittany Ambridge
Rear Facade 1st Floor: Full width kitchen with expansive opening to paved courtyard via folding / stacking glass doors.

This nearly two hundred year-old West Village townhouse and its unique little studio have seen many a colorful, creative life and hosted artists, poets and other notables from Mark Twain to Hillary Clinton.

Built in 1831, this elegant single-family house was given a total renovation in 1925 in the popular Georgian Palladian style of the day. The rare English style cottage nestled at the rear of the home’s garden served as a skylit studio built to provide the talented but troubled poet Edwin Arlington Robinson a peaceful place to write. In the ensuing decades the rear cottage–and the house itself–served as studio space for artists of the day.

In 1925, then owner E. Dean Fuller transformed the home from a Federal period house to a Georgian reproduction. Nearly one hundred years later, the intricate details from this renovation have remained.

A Deeper Dive

With strict landmark prescription that no visible front-facing alterations could be made to either building, the only way to affect a meaningful modernization for the new owners was to totally gut the interiors of both structures and go 13 feet below grade to give the main house a much-needed expansion.

Passersby are still able to appreciate a timeless treasure, but only those fortunate enough to be invited in will become aware of the visual pleasure of this monumental scope of work.

Phase one excavation of rear yard.
Cellar excavation.
Excavation of rear yard to 13 ft. below grade.
New paneled, formal entry foyer flanked by a paneled mud room.
Dry fitting of staircase and handrail at fabrication facility prior to delivery and install.
Foyer leads to central gallery with 5-story open curved stair, complemented by facing curved receiving foyer/dining area.
View of new interior curved stair post install.
Third and fourth floor plan view.
Central rotunda under construction.
First floor plan view.
30’ tall hanging chandelier at center of stairway, below laylight (a bespoke artisan piece designed and fabricated by Cameron Design House of London, comprised of multi-dimensional lighted spheres, descending from the fourth to first floors).
Skylight at rooftop washes daylight onto custom circular leaded-glass laylight at 4th floor ceiling; concealed lighting above replicates daylight at night.
Formal dining banquette built into rotunda on first floor.
Informal dining in kitchen.
Kitchen with unfettered access to courtyard through folding / stacking glass doors.
Elegant seating alcove off living room.
Primary bedroom, bathroom and dressing rooms at the rear of house, with children’s bedroom and bath to the front of house.
Primary bathroom marble and tile shop drawings.
Primary bathroom contains a variety of shower heads, body sprays, steam, and a free-standing soaking tub. Three-quarter height stone-clad walls of ‘Namibian Sky’ white onyx and Thassos marble floors in a custom mosaic tile pattern.
Bathroom tile installation consists of Thassos marble in a custom mosaic pattern.
Rear studio: family room with skylight.
View across the paved courtyard to the restored rear studio.
Rear studio: family room fireplace.